How to build an audience for your photography portfolio

How to build an audience for your photography portfolio – words Al Woods

Every photographer’s dream is to showcase their creativity to as many people as possible. However, building an audience for your online photography portfolio can be a hard nut to crack for many amateur photographers.

They often fail to capture the attention of their intended audience. Here at flux, we will offer a step by step guide for assisting you on how to build and maintain an audience including some great photography portfolio ideas.

Agreeing with Format Magazine, several portfolios fail to reach their intended audience due to a number of causes:

Poorly Designed Portfolios

There is a basic notion that many amateurs have in relation to creating and designing their portfolios. Majority of them think that you must be a well-established programmer in order to come up with a neat portfolio. In the world we live in today, things have transformed and even a person with the slightest knowledge of programming can come up with a very tidy portfolio.

You do not need to break a sweat learning intricate code languages, as there are many outsource resources on the web. For instance, you may hire a website builder at a very cheap fee or use web templates which are flooded online.The online website builders may offer you extra services to your website, which are very vital for your audience interaction and engagement. These additional services may include e-commerce features for online shopping and other unlimited services based on your liking.

You therefore have no justification to havinga poor web portfolio with the availability of all these resources, which are very useful to a professional and also to a lay person.

Before you begin designing your online portfolio, it is necessary to consider the following factors:

Who is your intended audience? Do you have specific visitors that you would like to redirect to your page? Do you intend to have potential clients from your portfolio? Are they individuals, big companies or magazines?

In which field of photography do you excel most? Are you a software oriented person?

What is your next big project? Are you stuck to one style of shooting or do you intend to try different styles?

Do you have a single project that stands out from the rest?

Which lay out do you propose to use? Do you have preferred colour scheme for your website?

Which font do you prefer? How will the titles and photos be displayed in your website?

Once you have come up with satisfactory answers to the above questions, the creation process may begin. You get to determine which method to go for, whether to lease an online website builder or use the available customizable web templates. Good examples of templates that you can use are available on Format’s guide to building a photography website.

Clogged Galleries

A bulky body of work for your portfolio does not always work out the best in generating visitors to your site. Having a number of galleries may not always be the best idea, especially if each gallery has a surplus of twenty images each. This is what is termed as clogged galleries. The audience may never get the time to go through all your work. This is not a good thing as the work posted was intended to be seen. Photography portfolio websites need to be easy to navigate.

The best way around this is to choose the best photographs and only add them to one or two galleries. This makes it easy for any visiting party to go through all your work and thus increase the chances of interaction. Five to ten images per gallery is a better alternative than placing all your work and minimising the chances of it being viewed.

Before posting photographs online, always run them through design software like adobe or light room. This ensures that your work is appropriately polished.

It is also important that you decide how your images will be displayed. In most cases, the grid view will work best for you. This is because the images are displayed all at once and the visitor can click on the photo that they like for a full size viewing.

Absence Of A Consistent Theme

Nobody wants to be in anunclear website. A simple and straight to the point portfolio should have consistent themes. If your theme is portraits, then this should be consistent all through the website.

Small details like colour, time of day and style of photography should be carefully considered so as not to have a mix up in themes. If you take many photographs during sunsets, it will be wise for you to continue with this theme all through the portfolio. A constant theme gives the audience a deeper insight into your work and this may improve the rate interaction.

However, if you have a collection of themes in your work, it will be best if you created galleries to represent each and every theme that you offer. This makes it easy for the audience to navigate through your work.

Lack Of Proper Linking Within And Without The Portfolio

It is advisable for you to have other websites or social media accounts besides your portfolio. Linking your online photo portfolio to other sites will certainly increase the number of visitors on your site.

However it is not logical to link your portfolio to private social media accounts where fewer of your work is showcased. Creating separate social media accounts for your work is a better option. In this case the linkage will be between multiple sites that showcase your work. This in return will spawn a healthy audience to your online photography portfolio.

How to build an audience for your photography portfolio – words Al Woods